


darling, you're the one I want

by xuxijun



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Post-Canon, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24313615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xuxijun/pseuds/xuxijun
Summary: a collection of moments from the lives of our cast after the end of the show
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 66





	1. tour, tears and love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> catra gets a tour of the castle, gets emotional and has a heart-to-heart talk with adora

Catra had never been to Bright Moon. I mean, sure, she was there with the Horde during the Battle of Bright Moon and stuff, but she was never actually _in_ there, you know? This was her first time seeing the castle in all its splendor, and never would she have imagined that she would enjoy it. Not too long ago, the thought of ever stepping foot into anything princess-related would have made her sick, so to be there— _with the queen herself_ —as a guest of honor was strange to say the least.

Despite her excitement and wonder towards everything she was seeing, she couldn’t help but to let her mind wander off to places she would like to avoid. Everything she saw was a reminder of all the wrongs she had done, every person the group crossed paths with seemed to look at her with disdain, bringing back to the forefront of her mind the terrible actions she had committed against them, and the guilt that just kept on accumulating and accumulating ever since her “talk” with Double Trouble.

At one point, her thoughts drowned out Adora’s enthusiastic voice, and she started running on auto-pilot, not very sure where she was going or aware of what was happening around her.

Eventually they came to a stop, and her best friend’s—lover? Girlfriend? She wasn’t very sure where her relationship with Adora stood as of now—voice echoed throughout the room they were on, startling Catra.

“So, what are you thinking of the tour so far?” Adora turns towards the cat and notices her expression. “Hey, is everything okay?” The concern in her voice was palpable, making Glimmer and Bow turn their attention from whatever they were talking about to the new addition of their group.

“Sorry, I just-“ Catra’s speech gets interrupted by the tears flowing from her eyes. “I just-“ The girl starts bawling out, and Adora gives her friends a look, one they immediately comprehend and give the two childhood companions some space.

“Hey, shhh, it’s okay, you’re okay.” The blonde says in a soft voice, attempting to calm the other girl down while taking her into her arms and squeezing as tight as she could, in a gesture that spoke more than a thousand words ever could.

They stand there for a few minutes, neither of them wanting to break the comfortable silence that had settled, holding onto each other as if their lives depended on it. They had been apart for so long, that sometimes they had moments like this, where they just stood for a while, arms around each other, not wanting to ever let go. It still felt surreal that they were reunited, that everything was at last starting to be right.

“I just-“ Catra restarts after finally managing to gather her voice. “I don’t understand this. Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? What do you mean?”

“Just…this. After everything I’ve made you and your friends go through, why are you accepting me so easily into your lives and…into your home…as if nothing happened? I just…I don’t get it.” Catra didn’t consider herself worthy of any of the affection and love she had been getting. In her eyes, she was still the same horrible person who had hurt Adora, Glimmer, Bow, and pretty much everyone on Etheria. During the war with Horde Prime, she had managed to ignore those feelings for a while, focusing instead on what really mattered at the time, and letting herself be loved for the very first time she could remember. But now that there was no pressing matter on their minds—at least for the time being, as soon they would have to start working towards the reparation of the planet and helping civilians get back on their feet—it was all coming back to her.

“Because I love you, Catra.” Adora says earnestly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, getting a surprised look from the other girl. “And I know you’ve done a lot of wrong stuff, we all do, but we believe in you. I believe in you. You’ve changed, and you’re trying to fix what you have broken, and that’s what truly matters.” Catra gulps, the tears threatening to escape again. “No matter what happens or how much you mess up, I got your back. Always. I’ll always look out for you. I want you to be well, Catra. You’ve suffered enough already.”

Those words played with the strings of the girl’s heart. She wasn’t used yet to having people telling her how much she meant to them, even just being on the receiving end of love was an alien concept to her. Her eyes gleam, wet from the overload of emotions she was feeling. “I’m so sorry. I regret everything I did so much. I would take it all back if I could.” She says in a small voice. As much as she had improved already, apologies and thank you’s were still hard to profess.

“I know you would, I know you would.” Adora comforts the cat, running her hand across her back in a reassuring manner, letting her know that she was safe there, that it would all be alright. “Don’t burden yourself with these thoughts so much, okay? It’s important that you recognize your mistakes and reflect on them, but don’t be too hard on yourself. The past is the past, all that you can do now is try to make it right with the people you’ve hurt. And you’re doing a great job at it.” Catra’s lips turn upwards to form the tinniest of smiles. “We’re all here for you, you know that right? You’re not alone.” She gives the girl a little peck on the nose, making her giggle gleefully.

“Gosh, since when are you so sappy. Being around all these princesses really changed you huh.”

“Oh please, as if you don’t love it.” It was Adora’s turn to laugh. “And it’s happening to you too, just you wait and see.”

“Hm, maybe you’re right.” She pauses, taking a long look at the woman in front of her, who seemed to be waiting for her to finish what she was saying. Classic Adora. “I do love it.”

They smile at each other, so bright they put the sun to shame, touching foreheads together, in a gesture they had grown fond of for the past few days.

“I still can’t believe this is real.”

“Yeah, me neither. It all feels like a dream. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The warrior cleans her friend’s face with her hands, wiping all remnants of tears.

“I love you, Adora. I truly do.”

“I love you too, Catra.” The two share a loving glance before kissing for the first time since they left the heart of Etheria. Unlike the other one, this kiss was slow, allowing them to actually feel their lips moving together in sync—they were so giddy and dizzy on the previous time, that it had been hard to even assimilate properly what was happening. Now, they weren’t in a rush, they had all the time in the world. Or so they thought.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made them separate hastily, both still a bit breathless. “Huhhh, you guys haven’t forgotten that we’re here, right?” Bow’s voice was heard, the teasing tone notable when he spoke.

“What, arrow boy, are we bothering you?” Catra retorts back, shooting him a smirk, and reconnecting her lips with Adora’s, who just let herself be kissed again, too happy to complain.

“UGH, you guys are _so_ disgusting. Please save that for later, for when we’re not around to see.” Unlike Bow, who outright constantly gushed over Catra and Adora’s new relationship, Glimmer always tried to seem fed up of their non-stop PDA, but it was hard to keep the façade when seeing her friends so happy, after years of yearning and obsessing over each other.

“Oh, c’mon Glimmer. They’ve spent their whole lives pining for each other, let them have this.”

Their lips separate once again, neither of them surviving the urge to laugh along with their friends.

“Yeah, you’re right Bow. We have.” Catra says lightly while looking directly at Adora’s eyes with a smile on her face, lacing their fingers together.

“Now let’s go, we’re not done with this tour just yet. You still haven’t seen our room!” Adora pulls her ex-friend-turned-lover’s hand, signaling to her friends to start moving as well.

“Wait, what do you mean _our_ room? Catra’s not staying with you!”

“Yeah she is, where else would she be staying?” Adora seemed genuinely confused.

“We have plenty of spare bedrooms in the castle, I want her to have one of her own. And I’m sure she’d like some privacy, no?” Glimmer looked at Catra, trying to find any sign of agreement on her mismatched eyes.

“I mean, it’s not like we had any back in the Horde. Staying with Adora would suit me just fine.” Catra shrugs. She never felt the need to have a room of her own before—more like the opposite, she hated the feeling of loneliness she had after moving to her Force Captain bedroom—why would she start now?

“See? It’s settled then.”

“But that’s exactly why she should have a room of her own-“

The two continue bickering back and forth while Bow just observes and quietly laughs to himself. Catra lets herself fall back behind the group, smiling at the people she now called friends. _Friends_. And to think that just a few months ago she was trying to kill them. Hmpf, who would’ve imagined, Catra being friends with _princesses_.

“Maybe you’re not so bad after all.” She says to herself in a whisper.

To be this loved and appreciated was still very new to Catra. It was something she was learning how to deal with, and sometimes it felt too good to be true. How could it be that, despite everything that happened, they still accepted her with open arms, eagerly taking her as one of their own? It was strange. And although she wouldn’t say it out loud—it was a topic that her therapy sessions with Perfuma hadn’t covered yet—she felt thankful. Thankful to Glimmer, to Bow, to the princesses, and especially thankful to Adora. It puzzled her how the blonde never gave up on her. But she decided to take her Adora’s advice, and just let herself go for a moment. After all, this was her first time seeing the Bright Moon castle, she’d have plenty of time later to sulk around.

“Hey Catra, you coming?” She hears Bow calling out to her, noticing how far behind she was from the group.

“Oh sorry, I got distracted for a moment.” She runs to catch up with her friends, wrapping her fingers around Adora’s, who was still too caught up bickering with Glimmer—it was mostly one-sided though—to even notice.

And in that moment, surrounded by her people, all seemed to fall into place, and she wished it would always be like this.


	2. now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bow wakes adora up in the morning, as usual, but this time she doesn't get up

Adora had always been the first one to get up. That was a habit she gained during her years in the Horde, and it ended up sticking with her even after she joined the Rebellion. It didn't matter the occasion—as soon as the first rays of sunshine started invading her bedroom, she'd wake up and start working on whatever it was that needed to be done.

Catra, on the other hand, had always gotten in trouble for sleeping in. More often than not she would arrive late to her training sessions in the Horde, both because she liked getting up late and just to spite Shadow Weaver even more. This only changed slightly after she got promoted to Force Captain—not because she tried to wake up early, but because on most nights she couldn't even sleep at all.

Today wasn't any different for either of the girls.

As always, Adora is the first to wake up. She checks the time on the clock placed on top of her bedside table—6 AM. Usually she would already be jumping out of bed and getting ready to start her day, but lately there wasn't much to do around the castle. Now that the Horde was gone for good, there wasn't anything to figure out or prepare that couldn't wait until later. She had kept her routine the same on the first few days back in Bright Moon, but it was boring having to wait around doing nothing until the rest of her friends were up.

So instead she turns to the other side of the bed, where Catra was still fast asleep, unaware of the blonde girl's attentive eyes on her. This had become part of her new routine, just staring at her sleeping girlfriend—was she allowed to call her that?—making sure she was alright. Although not as frequent as before, the brunette's nightmares hadn't disappeared completely and she would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night crying and reaching for Adora. And every single time Adora would hold her close to her chest, running her hand through the shorter girl's hair until she fell asleep again.

Carefully studying her, Adora runs her hand along the girl's face, making her purr under her touch and emit a cute little sound of satisfaction. She had missed this Catra, the one she knew before the sword, the one who was still able to sleep soundly, the one that didn't resent her. She had missed the simpler times, when they would stay up late whispering about whatever came to mind, telling silly jokes to each other, when they would cuddle to sleep and Adora would always have to put Catra back in her bunk before the morning so that Shadow Weaver wouldn't catch them in the same bed.

Catra hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long, long time. Adora was aware of that. For the first time since they were reunited, she hadn't woken up during the night. Adora knew that. She'd always been a light sleeper, but now more than ever. Every small movement Catra made during her sleep would awaken the blonde, every slightly louder sigh working better than any alarm at pulling her back into consciousness. 

Memories of an almost lifeless Catra in her arms haunted her every night. The desperation she had felt in that moment, not knowing what to do to help her friend, nothing would ever even come close to that feeling. 

Along with the memories, the trauma had stuck with her, causing her to wake up randomly in the middle of the night just to check if Catra was still breathing. Nothing would ever even come close to the feeling of relief that washed over her everytime that she saw the girl's chest rise slowly.

Right now, Catra was having the most peaceful sleep she'd had ever since they came to Bright Moon. She looked heavenly, the morning light covering her like a thin blanket, her mouth partially open, revealing one of her fangs, a little drool pooling on their pil–okay, maybe that part wasn't as ideal. But to Adora, it only signified that she was resting well.

Adora usually doesn't like sleeping in, but maybe today she'd make an exception.

____

She wakes up three hours later. It had been so long since she last slept until so late by choice. And thinking back, the only times she did were to not disturb Catra's peaceful sleep when she would hold onto Adora during the night—just like she was doing right now.

Her stomach growled, not used to staying empty for so long. She wanted to go get breakfast, but for that she would have to remove the fluffy arm that was clutching her so tightly, and push away the face that was hidden on the crook of her neck. And she just didn't have the guts to do that.

So she stayed right there, laying on her back with Catra flushed against her right side. She tried not to move as best as she could, her only body movement being that of her eyes trying to find a distraction. It was a secret to no one that Adora had trouble staying put for more than a couple minutes, but she would try, for Catra.

Her eyes inspected every nook and cranny of the part of the room that was visible to her while on this position, roaming across the same pieces of furniture over and over again. She tried to entertain herself by doing a mental list of the tasks she had for the day, but there wasn't much to do and so the list took her no longer than ten seconds. Muffled steps and rumbling could be heard in the background, a sign that everyone was already up and going about their day, the castle having come to life maybe an hour ago, maybe more, she wasn't sure of what time it was and she wouldn't dare move to check.

She had already counted and drawn all the constellations in Catra's freckles when the usual morning knock on her door almost makes her jump in surprise, having been taken away to a far away place by the little curls that adorned Catra's face, reminding her of the soft cloud waves she'd had seen on the beaches of Mystacor, the hot puffs of air the girl exhaled through her mouth matching the slight breeze that could be felt everywhere on the floating island.

"Adora, time for breakfast!" Bow's voice resounded from outside the bedroom's door, cheerful as ever, making her cringe at the sudden noise and check to see if Catra had stirred awake—negative. The smaller girl had always been sensitive to the even the littlest of sounds, so the fact that Bow's loud calling hadn't affected her really proved how profoundly she was sleeping. Adora couldn't help but smile to herself at the thought of that.

Habitually by now Adora would already have opened the door, sometimes not even letting the boy finish his sentence. He probably noticed that, knocking and making himself heard once again. "Adora, c'mon we're waiting for you!" No response. The last thing the blonde wanted was to make any sound that could possibly wake up the sleeping girl next to her. "Adora? Are you there?" Silence. 

A second voice seemed to join, vocalizing a quieter "Is she not up yet?" which was replied to with a "I don't know, she hasn't said anything, and no one has seen her around the castle either." 

"Strange." Strange indeed. 

After some more back and forth between the two on the other side of the door, clearly conflicted between "Maybe she's still sleeping, we should just let her rest." and "But what if something happened to her? This is so not like Adora, maybe she's in trouble!", they decided to leave, not before announcing that they'd be waiting for her downstairs. 

The room was once again enveloped in a peaceful silence, the sunlight shining even brighter than it had three hours ago and the birds outside more active than earlier. Adora let herself melt against the mattress once more, her body relaxing completely and her mind clear of thoughts. Her left arm moved to brush softly over Catra's exposed skin, feeling her hairs standing up slightly. A sigh left the girl's mouth for the nth time that morning.

Turning her body gently to face Catra, she embraced the brunette, who cuddled further against her. And at that moment all felt right, like all the stars and planets had finally aligned, telling her that this was fate, this was meant to be, that she didn't need anything else in life as long as she could have Catra in her arms every morning.

Adora usually didn't stay in bed until so late, but maybe she could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey ! long time no see huh
> 
> i know it's been very long since i posted the first chapter and im not really expecting anyone to read this one, but i had a bit of this in my drafts and i thought it was too cute not to finish ! i literally just wrote over a half of this chapter right now, so sorry if it's not good
> 
> anyways, to be honest i dont know if ill continue with this. i have plenty of other prompts noted down but im not really part of the fandom or invested in shera anymore. maybe i will write them if i feel like it, but if not, it's possible that i will be publishing works for other fandoms. i have this really ambitious project that I've been entertaining for over a year now that i want to finally move forward with. so far i have the first chapter and a bit of the second one down, but im not very satisfied with what i have (which was written around march, april perhaps? at the beginning of quarantine so yeah its been a while and my writing has improved since then, as well as my english) so ill probably be rewriting most of it. either way, i really want to put it out. if it works according to plan it's going to be a series of 4 long books, exploring some of the side characters' stories and featuring a looot of yearning, fluff, angst, and ofc gay. it's meant to be a slow burn. so yeah maybe subscribe to my account if you're interested in that!
> 
> if you enjoyed this chapter dont be afraid to comment down below! i take constructive criticism as well, im new to this whole writing thing so it could be very helpful.
> 
> thanks for checking in and i wish everyone a great 2021!


End file.
